Education, Language and Learning a Language

Hi guys,

One of the points that I mentioned in the post 'How to get 100% success in teaching a foreign language' was that around 90% students spend 9-12 years studying a language but still can't speak it. They may be able to parrot some sentences out, but they aren't autonomous speakers of the target language.

This is because they are 'learning' not 'acquiring'. By 'learning' I mean 'learning about'.

One of Steven Krashen's main points in the 80s was also that there is a distinct separation between 'learning' and 'acquiring'. He called it 'The acquisition-learning distinction'.

Now although he wrote a book on this in 1981 (31 years ago) titled 'Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning' we still find that in most schools and language institutes in Indonesia today language is still learned but not acquired.

I feel there are three reasons for this:

1. The acquisition-learning distinction has not been socialized enough with potential and current teachers
2. It is easier to test that language has been 'learned' rather than acquired (it can be tested just like any other subject)
3. The text books which teachers are asked to teach from (and which are preparing for those tests) focus of course on learning rather than acquiring the language. 

There are also three reasons that those three reasons shouldn't hold us back on this:

1. It is easy to socialize the acquisition-learning distinction
2. The nation will get a far superior benefit from almost 100% of High School graduates being able to communicate autonomously in English rather than 10%. Besides that more students are going to do well in the final year 12 exam in they have been actually acquiring the language for 9-12 years rather than just studying it.
3. Teachers want to see their students successful. If the focus is changed to being able to autonomously communicate efficiently in the language rather than just get good test scores. I believe teachers will accept the challenge and any changes in the curriculum that supports it.

I want to make this post short and sweet because I believe this is essentially a simple point, a simple fact with simple and easy application. I hope to do more in the application of this point in the coming years, around Indonesia if God grants me that opportunity.

If students acquire English starting from their first year of primary education, they will do well in the TOEFL exams for entry into Universities because they will be competent in the language. The main things that are tested in the TOEFL exam are Reading Comprehension and Correct Vocabulary Selection (usually in the form of multiple choice questions). Grammar is tested but somebody with purely a conscious understanding of grammar will most likely do badly. The student with a subconscious understanding of what fits and what doesn't will do much better in questions relating to grammar. This has been proven in numerous studies and I have seen it also in my own personal experience with language students here.

Further more even if only a slight increase in TOEFL scores and fluency are found (worse case scenario) wouldn't it still be better that most students graduate with a communicative competency in English? a B1-B2 (European standard) competency alone opens ups many opportunities for the individual including but not limited to trade, education, employment, contacts, the global village, cultural perspectives and professional development. Essentially we would be giving millions of people a gift for life, the gift of another language.

So I hope this post has inspired you to spread the message of language acquisition which essentially means a campaign against 'language learning' as there is simple not time for both and our priorities should be clear.

Keep on sharing, shining and changing lives!

Kindest regards,

-Hugh

How to get 100% Success in Teaching a Foreign Language

Hi Guys,

Continuing from the last post "Questioning Our Preconceptions on Education", what can we achieve after we question our preconceptions? The answer of course is a world of opportunities but what I'd like to focus on today is the benefit that language teachers can get.

CS to BS:

CS to BS means "current situation" to "better situation" to bet a better situation we must first examine our or our current situation. Here's the CS:

1. To be able to speak another language you must be able to speak using another language (sorry for stating the obvious)
2. It is common in most schools around Indonesia to have students graduate from studying English for 9-12 years without even being able to speak English confidently
3. The excuse floating around is that this is okay because they can still pass written tests and are therefore building up a good background knowledge of the language
4. Having a good background knowledge of the language but not being able to speak yet is what we call a "false beginner" being a false beginner after 9-12 years of studying a language is not good enough, to say the least
5. Some students come out of the system being able to speak the target language well. Many say this is showing the system works, I say those students are linguistically gifted and have great internal motivation to succeed. Having a 10% success rate is not to be bragged about.
6. There must be change!

BS:

1. Language is perhaps the only subject in which we can claim to be able to get a 100% success rate. Not every child born on this earth will be competent in Mathematics, nor will they be great in Geography but all human beings can speak a language (unless of course they have some severe disability). Even those who are not able to speak or hear, can use sign language. So everybody can learn a language, if everybody can learn a language, everybody can learn a second or a third language, we have this ability inbuilt in us at birth.
2. All we need to do to get this kind of success is set the correct standards. For the first few years (or at least until the students get past not being able to speak) books and paper based tests should not be used. This is setting many students up for failure and does not instill confidence in students. You should not ask a Second Language Learner to work on literacy skills straight away just as you would not ask a baby to learn their mother tongue from a text book either!
3. If we focus on speaking and listening for a year using a brain friendly approach our students will be able to speak. It may take a few sessions a week but they will speak. This means in one year we will achieve more than what others do in 12 (this is not to say reading and writing wouldn't be used but it just wouldn't be tested or focused on). This means that our students WILL graduate speaking another language, ALL our students, not that shabby right?
4. This opens up a world of possibility for language instruction. If it is possible to get a student to an upper-beginner level in a foreign language in 2 years (being confident to speak and explore the language afterwards by themselves) this means after Primary School (SD) all students would be able to speak three foreign languages to an upper-beginner level.
5. If students graduating Primary School have an Upper-Beginner level in three languages and feel confident with foreign languages this means they could fine tune one or all three of these languages in the next 6 years on Secondary Education. More than enough time to work on literacy skills (especially if they are making a transition from Bahasa Indononesia which is also a Latin Script language or being able to read Quran which is a good enough background in Arabic literacy to kick start the next 6 years).

So in conclusion with only a slight change of mindset and a few new techniques up our sleeve we can achieve grand possibilities in teaching another language. How about for other subjects, what small changes could we make to achieve similar grand results? I think there are probably a few, but let's leave that till another day to discuss.

Please don't forget to leave your comment and visit/join our facebook group to discuss information on the blog or to add your own ideas.
Until next time - Let's Change some Lives!
Kindest regards,
-Hugh